Halo: Combat Abridged
by Hannibal-Necromancer97
Summary: A novelization of Halo: Combat Evolved with some obvious changes, one of which is the person filling Master Chief's role. Join the erratic Spartan-1337 as he attempts to figure out what the fuck is going on. (Rated M for adult language/suggestions and violence.)
1. Smashing the Pillar

The Pillar of Autumn sailed through the blackness of space, thereby asserting its control over the currently unknown region. "All I want to know," its leader, Captain Jacob Keyes, said, "is did we lose them?"

 _"I think we both know the answer to that…"_

"…Yes then?"

 _"No."_

Keyes nearly bit off the end of his pipe. "I literally slapped the keyboard and sent us into slipspace to a random place in a random direction. How the hell did they -"

 _"Get here first? Covenant ships have always been faster. As for tracking us all the way from Reach… well, you_ _did_ _just slap the keyboard."_

He sighed. "We were running dark, right?"

 _"Until we decelerated. Nobody could have missed the hole we tore in subspace."_ Keyes looked over one of the flight engineers' shoulders at a diagram (that frankly could have been drawn by a kindergartener) depicting Covenant ships, the Pillar of Autumn, and Reach. _"They were waiting for us on the far side of the planet."_

"So…" He walked back to his position behind the pilots on a raised platform. "What now?"

 _"Well, thirty bucks says that they attack us, we have to evacuate, the ship crashes on that big ring over there, and we have a big game devoted to a recently-unfrozen Spartan fighting aliens, zombies, and robots while he tries to destroy the ring."_

"…Make it fifty and it's a deal."

 _"Done."_

"And Kalmiya?" The small crimson avatar of the ship's onboard AI appeared. "Have our friends in cryo wake the baby."

"Already in progress," she grinned.

/-/

 _"Attention, all combat personnel. Please report to your action-station. 5_ _th_ _platoon, secure airlocks on deck 11; 14_ _th_ _platoon, rendezvous with 22_ _nd_ _tactical at bulkhead Charlie 14. This is not a drill. I repeat: this is not a drill."_

"Rise and motherfuckin' shine, maggots!" Sergeant A. Johnson shouted once he was within earshot of the marines in the vehicle depot. "Line up for orders!"

The couple dozen soldiers under Johnson's command scrambled to their positions, standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder with one another on either side of the sergeant. "We are being attacked by the enemy on our own ship. I don't know about you shitstains, but I was getting ready for some shuteye! Now I'm tired, cranky, and I have to fight aliens off with a sling and a couple of rocks!"

"Um," one particularly ballsy marine said, "you get a laser in the next game. I'm pretty sure we all die."

Johnson headbutted the corporal, likely breaking his nose in the process. "Don't interrupt your superior when he is speaking to you! We covered that on day zero!"

"Sir, yes sir!" the rest of the soldiers shouted in chorus.

"Now take your sticks and rocks and beat those bastards off our ship!"

The corporal spoke again, still weak from his new injury. "What happened to the sling…?"

Another headbutt. "I repurposed it as a jockstrap! What the fuck does it matter?" He turned to the rest of the marines. "Move out! Double-time!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

As his squad filed out, Johnson stood in the door of the alcove with his rifle over his shoulder. "All you greenhorns who wanted to see Covenant up close," he screwed a cigar into his mouth with a grin, "Today's gonna be your lucky day."

/-/

Sam and Johannes sat in their booth overlooking the cryobay. "Flush!" Sam almost yelled, slapping his cards on the table.

Johannes was unimpressed. "Four aces." He revealed his hand as he scraped the pot towards himself.

"Every goddamn time," Sam muttered.

A small beep could be heard on the console to his right. [Get your asses up,] it read, [and open the damn coffin.]

"Shit. Back to work, Jones."

They began to type code into the keyboards. "Let's see… unlatching casket."

"Rise and shine, Chief: it's show time."

/-/

"…Ugh… where the hell…?"

"Morning, Chief," said a voice.

 _Chief? What the…?_ Spartan-1337 peered through his headache, finding a man by an access panel to his right. _I'm not Chief…_

"Sorry for waking you so early," the man said again, "But we kinda need you. Just, ah, one moment." He pulled out a clipboard - not a holopad, an _actual_ clipboard from the twenty-first century or so - and began rifling through some pages. "Go ahead and look around the room; gotta make sure you're still in working order."

1337 complied, getting an eyeful of the cryobay interior's plain metal walls and floor. Around the room were several other pods that had long since been emptied. Obviously he was going to be the last horse across the finish line. Again. _"Bridge to cryo, this is Captain Keyes,"_ spoke a voice over the intercom. _"Send the Master Chief up immediately."_

"S-So soon? Sir, there are a number of other tests that we really -"

 _"Did I fucking stutter?"_

"…Aye-aye, sir." The man turned back to 1337. "We'd better get going. I guess now's as good as any time to see if your legs still work."

The Spartan nearly leapt out of the freezer, stretching his limbs as he did. "It is goddamn _cramped_ in that box!" he groaned, rolling his shoulders. "Everything seems to work fine, nothing out of the ordinary…" He looked at his chestplate and frowned. "Ahem," 1337 pointed to the callsign - or lack thereof - on his upper-left chest, "Where the hell are my numbers?"

"Huh? Oh, they must have rubbed off or something."

"'Or something?' You're not even gonna try at an excuse?"

"It's not like you're missing a testicle! It's three little numbers we can paint right back on."

 _"Uh, guys,"_ another man said from above them. His arms were over his head, and an alien was pointing its gun at him. _"I think you should go."_

A series of honks and worts came from the aggressor, who then fired on the engineer. "Oh shit!" The remaining crewman grabbed 1337 by the arm and bolted. Less than six seconds out the door, he tried to drag the Spartan through a door, which immediately exploded.

/-/

"Stupid son of a bitch…" 1337 muttered. He now was wandering haphazardly through the ship, making his way to the bridge. Passing through the armory was no help, seeing as the available guns had no ammo or were simply broken, and an alien had spooked him in one of the access tunnels. Eventually he found a blue arrow that read 'Bridge' on the ground. "Well that's some help, I guess."

"Sir!" A marine waved by another door with a similar arrow. "Captain's waiting through here!"

"Thanks. I wouldn't've fuckin' guessed." He entered the bridge, where multiple technicians scrambled about while others sat contrarily calm at their stations. Once on the main platform, 1337 cleared his throat. "Captain."

"Jesus!" Keyes turned around. "Gotta get a bell on you or something; you move too quietly for someone your size."

"Um…?"

The captain sighed. "Anyway, good to see you, because we're in deep shit right now. Kalmiya's done as good as she can, but we're pretty fucked."

"'As well as I can.'" A small red hologram appeared on the pedestal to the right, depicting a young woman with long hair made up of oblong, curved panels of code. "Two thousand years English has existed and still no-one can speak it worth a damn." The hologram turned to face the Spartan. "Sleep well?"

"…Who the hell are you," 1337 responded flatly, "where the hell am I, and what the hell is going -?"

A loud explosion rocked the Pillar of Autumn, throwing nearly everyone off their feet. Keyes was the first to speak after. "Report!"

"Covenant boarding parties flanking us!" Kalmiya answered urgently. "There's a breach in the lower hull… They've got antimatter charges!"

"That's it! We're leaving!"

"Sir?"

"Kalmiya, this ship isn't gonna hold against so much punishment. So, I'm invoking Cole Protocol Article 2, paragraph 17: have all hands evacuate the Autumn. Including you."

"And you're gonna do what exactly?"

Keyes pointed out through the glass cockpit to a massive ring-world. "See that?" Kalmiya and 1337 nodded in unison. "I'm gonna land on it."

"Permission to speak freely?"

"Permission granted, Master Chief."

"First, that takes massive cajones, sir, and second -"

Another explosion. "No time! Kalmiya, prep for extraction; Chief, you're taking her with you."

"What?"

"I'm gonna hand you her data card and a gun, and you're gonna get the hell off my ship." He paused. "That's an order, though. Don't take it the wrong way."

1337 groaned. "Fine, I'll take her with me. Don't expect a miracle, though."

Keyes nodded before typing a series of digits into the pedestal. He took the card out of its slot and handed it to the Spartan with his personal pistol. "Be warned, I haven't had ammo for it since we left Reach."

"Thanks a fuckin' load, Captain. Really."

He slid the card into the back of his helmet and Kalmiya verbally recoiled. _"That's_ a lot of porn!"

"That depends on your definition of 'a lot'."

"You have almost a terabyte of explicit videos, pictures, and literotica saved to your helmet's closed network!"

Keyes shuddered. "That _is_ a lot. Now go!"

/-a number of minutes later-/

"…So…" Kalmiya said as 1337 crawled through the second of maybe three maintenance shafts, "Were you gonna ever mention that you're not Master Chief? Or were you just gonna lead these marines astray?"

1337 stopped. "Wait, how did you know?"

"I know because _my baby sister_ went with him. I've been rolling with the punches since I got here, but it's nice to see someone else where they shouldn't be."

"So, do you have any idea what's going on?"

"No idea. I do know, though, that the Pillar of Autumn crashed onto Halo Instillation-04 in 2552, almost five years ago. We must have both encountered temporal rifts somewhere along our day-to-day."

"Well, I don't know what half of that meant, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the simple version is 'we time-warped'."

"Basically. At least that's my theory."

"So I guess we roll with it until we can get back?"

"Guess so. Besides," 1337 could hear her smirk, "didn't you ever wonder what it would be like to be the big guy?"

"Eh," he shrugged, "not frequently, or recently. Look, I think we're near the end here."

He exited, arriving in a dark room. Ahead and to the left was a busted door sitting crooked off its track. "Break that door in."

"What? Why?"

"The ship's going down anyway, right?"

"Oh yeah."

The stand-in Master Chief rammed the door, bending it in surprisingly easily. "Freeze!" He complied, heeding Kalmiya's order. She whispered, "Watch your motion tracker; there's a Grunt right around this corner."

"Gotcha." 1337 tiptoed to the corner and, sure enough, a Grunt stood with its back to him, scratching its ass. "Ugly fucker, isn't he?"

"Take him down quietly; I'm getting a read on some more guys in the next room." One exaggerated step after another, the Spartan stalked his way to the intruder.

/-/

Grunty the Grunt, meanwhile, couldn't help but notice a large shadow extend in front of him. For a moment he thought it might have been his, but upon further inspection it was far too large. He almost had it identified when two large, human hands gripped the sides of his skull, immediately before twisting it on its vertebrae 180 degrees with a sharp, quiet crack. The last thing poor Grunty saw before the light left his eyes was a giant robot willing him to pass out. So he did.

/-/

"Jesus Christ, man!" Kalmiya half-yelled.

"You said take him down quietly."

"I meant, like, punch him in the back or something! I wasn't expecting that; you gave me a heart attack!"

"Waitaminute." He pointed at her in confusion, thus pointing at himself. "You can get those?"

She groaned. "Never mind. Just do something about this Elite that's coming up."

"What Elite?"

/-/

Smitty Wortburten, an Elite warrior, stood at his post, ensuring no humans made their way past him into the corridor. It was a simple job, though not exactly entertaining; he'd nearly passed out twice from his lack of interest, and was working on number three when something attempted to grab him from behind. A metallic forearm pressed itself across his throat, probably attempting to close it, as someone growled quiet insults and swears in human language, very likely a human. "What's going on right now?" Smitty asked.

"…A sleeper hold?" the man behind him answered.

"A sleeper hold? Hm, well you're doing it wrong."

"Enlighten me."

"Well you need better leverage than that, for starters. Bringing me to my knees should do it." He felt a kick to the back of one of his knees, causing the joint to buckle. "Yeah, like that. Then, you need to press my windpipe into the crook of your elbow; that's how you block off my oxygen intake." A firm hand pushed his head to the left as the man's grip with his elbow tightened. "Now you're getting it," he choked out.

"So why aren't you unconscious yet, then?"

"It takes a minute for… the oxygen to my… brain to…"

/-/

"That was… awkward."

"Drag him out of sight. We don't want his friends to notice him like this."

"'Drag him?' What, do you think we're starring in Metal Gear V? Splinter Cell? There's no 'pick up body' function in this game, Kelly."

"Shh!"

"Don't you 'shh' me -!"

"Quiet!" She paused while he complied. "You hear that?"

"…Lifeboats popping out into the black abyss of space?"

"Exactly. Come on, we're not far."

/-an indeterminate amount of time later-/

Private Jenkins dove into the airlock as something small, blue, and burning exploded behind him. He swore, covering his head to protect himself from another blast. A large hand grabbed him by the collar, chucking him the rest of the way into the lifeboat. "Get a move on, dumbass!" the hand's owner, the rumored Spartan they had aboard, said. "Or do you feel like dying in a fireball of molten steel and rocket fuel?" The marine shook his head, strapping himself in. "Good man. Pilot, get us the hell outta here!"

"Smartest idea I've heard all day, sir!" The pilot lowered her visor as the pod rocketed away from the frigate Pillar of Autumn. "We're away, headed for minimum safe distance."

"Minimum?" The Spartan asked, approaching the driver's seat. "Why not _maximum?_ Why would we want to be so close?"

"Dramatic effect, sir. Dramatic effect."

"…You. Me. Fuck. If we live."

"You promise?"

Jenkins spoke up finally once he was calm. "Who are you, sir?"

The Spartan turned around, addressing not only Jenkins, but the entire lifeboat of marines. "I'll tell you who I'm _not:_ I am _not_ the Master Chief, Spartan-One-One-Seven." Many soldiers scratched their heads, as they had been informed that he was, in fact, the Master Chief. The Spartan continued, "I am what makes Hunters cry in their every waking nightmare; the man that sends giant evil Covenant monkey soldiers into slipspace with no exit. I grasp the burning sun in my hand and endure the heat, which I then use to bake a hell of a blueberry pie. When you hear of Spartan-Thirteen-Thirty-Seven in the mess hall, you hear of me: the single most hyped-up Spartan in the project, who will stop at nothing to ensure that every trace of the Covenant is fucked firmly in the ass and sent to hell!"

A roar of applause rebounded through the lifeboat at the motivating and informative speech. "Wow, sir!" Jenkins said after almost a minute. "That was outstanding! I'll be sure to remember all that you said and remind everyone that mistakes you for the Chief of who you are."

1337 grinned under his helmet. "That's what I like to hear! Finally, some recognition!"

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Kalmiya said. "If you recall, only the Master Chief survived the crash landing Lifeboat 03 made on the ring."

"…Er, Kelly… Which lifeboat are we in right now…?"

/-/

"…1337, can you hear me?"

"Ugh…"

"Oh good. If you'd died, I'd be a sitting duck for the Covenant. Can you move?"

"Yeah, I can -" he winced. "I can move." He looked around the remains of the lifeboat, strewn with corpses from the marines that once occupied it. Jenkins's head rested comfortably in 1337's lap, having made its way there clear from the other end of the pod. "…Motherfucker…"


	2. Halo (Roll Credits)

Spartan-1337 climbed out of the lifeboat, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. "So," he said looking around, "What's the next step?"

"Well," Kalmiya answered, "our options are a: stay here and have investigating Covenant forces find us, probably kill you, and experiment on me to find Earth..."

"How about 'fuck that, what else you got?' "

"...Or b: move into the hills, miss the patrol entirely, and head for the structures where the surviving marines land here in... five minutes."

"Sounds like fun. I'm gonna grab some ammo."

/-/

Once across the bridge, the Covenant ship Kalmiya had detected arrived as predicted, dropping off - "Wait," she said, "That can't be right."

"What can't be right?"

"The Covenant didn't deploy Brutes to Instillation 04. What are they doing here?"

Indeed, four mean-looking ape soldiers were sacking the lifeboat, ripping out bodies like angry surgeons. "That's a good question, Kelly. And it's one we have no answer to if we sit around watching 'em."

"Good point." She paused. "I hear gunfire over this ridge. Let's go."

/-/

Over said ridge, Sergeant Johnson and his platoon were pinned on a structure by a bunch of aliens: namely Brutes, Grunts, and Jackals. "Come on, you dumb apes!" Johnson yelled, chucking a grenade into their midst. "You want breakfast, you gotta catch it!"

"Finally!" 1337 yelled, racking the slide on his assault rifle. "It's ass-kicking time!"

As soon as he said it, every alien looked his way. "...Er... Okay, maybe I'll only kick _half_ your asses." Another grenade. "...I guess it's all now." And another. "Okay, fuck this. Johnson, you kill-stealing dickwad!"

"Chief, you overgrown metal bastard!" Johnson called back. "How the hell are you, you lucky son of a bitch?"

"I've been better. What's going on?"

"We were calling for extraction. Then these gorillas started having their way with us. Good thing you were able to distract them."

"Yeah, glad to be part of the team. How about that evac? Any word?"

Johnson nodded. "ETA one minute."

"Well, that's not so -"

"That was ten minutes ago."

"There it is."

"We called another pelican after that, and she's due damn quick. Think you can help hold this position?"

"I might."

/-/

Almost two hours later, 1337 was out of ammo, punching the last Jackal's face in. "That," he panted, "was not... damn quick."

"Look," Kalmiya said, "five o' clock. More lifeboats coming in."

 _"This is Pelican Echo-Four-Nineteen,"_ came the dropship pilot's voice over the radio, _"Anybody readin' me?"_

 _"Roger, Echo-419,"_ Kalmiya responded. _"We read you."_

"It's damn good to hear your voice, Foehammer," 1337 breathed.

 _"Hey Chief! Kalmiya! Good to hear from ya."_

 _"Foehammer, we need a big favor. If you could disengage your Warthog, Chief and I are gonna see if we can save some soldiers._ "

"Woah, woah," 1337 protested, giving up on correcting people. "When did I agree to this?"

"When you exited the lifeboat."

"Fuuuuck..."

Foehammer deployed her Warthog, allowing 1337 and a couple of straggling marines to climb in. After a minute of continuous driving, they came to a tunnel. "This cave isn't a natural formation," Kalmiya noted.

"Gee, Kelly, what tipped you off? Was it the flat metal walls or the little blinking lights?"

"I'm just saying it would be odd if this was here and it _didn't_ lead someplace."

"And I'm just saying that it's fairly obvious this tunnel was made by someone."

/-/

"We're lost, aren't we?"

"We're not lost! We just..." 1337 looked around the portion of tunnel that seemed to go on for eternity. "...don't know where the exit is."

"Sir, if I may," one of the marines said, "I think we should pull over and ask for directions."

"A worthy request if not for two things. Number One: we don't know exactly where we're going, so it would be pointless to stop and ask. And Number Two: there's nobody here, so it would be pointless to stop and ask."

"Is that the exit?" the other asked.

"No."

"Because I think I see light that way -"

"Maybe."

/-/

"Fresh air!" the Spartan proclaimed. "Finally!"

"What's that?" Kalmiya said.

"...What's what?"

"That! The crashed lifeboat over there; let's go investigate."

"Okay! It's just that you can't point, so you need to not play the pronoun game every now and then."

"Whoops. Sorry."

The jeep rolled up to the lifeboat, and the first thing that hit 1337 was the odor of about a dozen dead bodies. "Woah, that's ripe!" He hopped out, immediately stepping on something long and metallic. He looked down, grinning at the rifle. "Hello, what's this?" He picked it up, enjoying its weight as he dusted it off. "I found a sniper rifle I wasn't even looking for. Take that, causality!"

"Does it work?"

"Of course it works. Look, the shit on my HUD comes on when I whip it out."

"I mean does it work after you stepped on it?"

He inspected the barrel and action, finding nothing abnormal. "It'll be fine. Just needs a good dusting and something to shoot at."

"How about the Banshee coming in on our four?" one marine suggested as the other began firing the Warthog's mounted turret. Said Banshee exploded momentarily after, coming to rest about twelve feet from the lifeboat. "...Never mind."

"Thanks, Jerry."

/-/

"Bang! ...Fuck. Bang! ...Fuck." 1337 continued to fire his new sniper rifle at the covenant forces at the base of the hill, missing more often than not. "Bang! ...Fuck."

"Maybe it would be better to use your assault rifle?" Kalmiya said. "I mean, I'd hate to insinuate that you're not a top-notch sniper and all..."

"Shut up Kelly." He fired again, actually managing to clip a Brute. "Yeah! Got one!"

"Congratulations. While you were doing that, the marines on the hill perforated an Elite and three Grunts."

"Just doing my part." The Spartan switched to his automatic rifle and charged. "Time to eat lead, zealots!" The five or so marines on the steppe lobbed grenades at the alien force, effectively decimating them. "Son of a _bitch!"_

"... _That's_ convenient. Hey, 1337."

"What now? You gonna gloat that the real Master Chief would have destroyed this thing by now? Or maybe you're gonna tell me the location of Blackbeard's treasure hoard?" He paused. "...Is it the treasure hoard?"

"What?" She scoffed. "No, you dunderhead, I found the captain. While you've been... shooting... I've been searching the covenant BattleNet. They're holding Keyes on a cruiser not too far from here: the Truth and Reconciliation. We can make it there by nightfall, but we'll have to leave right now."

"Great. We're having a nighttime level." He climbed onto Foehammer's pelican, taking a seat and letting out a sigh. "Fan-fucking-tastic... Hey, Kelly? ...How do I take off my helmet?"

"You don't."

"Great..."


	3. Rescue Ops

The sun had disappeared from view, cloaking the cliffside in the darkness of night. Foehammer pulled her pelican in quietly, allowing the marines and Spartan-1337 to jump out. "Okay, Kelly," he said, readying his sniper rifle, "What are we lookin' at?"

"Multiple hostiles, primarily Grunts and Jackals. There's a Brute Chieftain taking a piss off to the side."

" _Little_ too much information." He and the marines stalked up the ridge. True to Kalmiya's word, several Grunts and Jackals dotting the immediate area below, and a menacing Brute stood idly on the far side with his back turned. "Alright, people," 1337 whispered into his com, "If we're gonna reach the captain, we'll need to pick our targets carefully. Don't open fire until -"

"LERRROOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYY JEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNS!" one marine shouted, charging into the killbox with his assault rifle and immediately getting decimated by various plasma weapons.

"Goddammit. Open fire!" Having recieved no training with the sniper rifle whatsoever between missions, the Spartan stand-in switched to his own assault rifle. It was going to be a long night.

/-/

"Kelly, did we ever go over how we're gonna get up to that ship?"

"You weren't paying attention on the way here?"

"I was taking a nap."

Kalmiya sighed. "The ship uses a cylinder of artificially manipulated gravitons to transport entities between the ship and the ground."

"...Okay, say that again in English, please."

"There's a gravity lift we're gonna use, but it's probably heavily guarded."

"How heavily?"

"Reports from the main timeline say that the Master Chief faced two Hunters. But, given that we're here and there are Brutes, it could be just about anything."

"Gotcha. Oh! I found a pistol!"

"Why are you excited?"

1337 smirked. "Just wait and watch. You're gonna wish we hadn't discontinued the older models."

/-/

They reached the gravity lift, signalling their arrival by mowing down the legion of scrub troops that did a pitiful job of protecting it. "Okay, you said a couple of Hunters were on their way next?"

"I believe I said 'it could be just about anything,' actually."

At precisely that moment, two Hunters dropped from the ship, accompanied by a next-gen Wraith. "Oh, you've got to be shitting me," 1337 and Kalmiya said simultaneously. Kalmiya added, "Where did they even get that? That model isn't supposed to be in use for almost a year!"

"What can you tell me, Kelly?" 1337 asked urgently.

"The newer models of Wraith are equipped with manned plasma turrets for close-up engagements. Second-generation tanks were able to fire them automatically." 1337 rolled out of the way of a flurry of plasma before nearly getting flattened/disintegrated by a giant mortar. "They're equipped with superior armor to their predecessors and the mortar shots take half the time to recharge."

"Fan- _fucking_ -tastic!" He pulled his pistol up, annoyed and slightly maniacal. "Kelly, you're about to witness God's wrath strike the enemy down, and fifty bucks says he does it in three shots."

"You're going to take two Hunters and a _Wraith_ with a _pistol?_ " She pondered the claim momentarily. "Alright, then. Have at it."

Dodging another volley from the tank, 1337 shot one Hunter square in the abdomen. The beast howled, dropping dead as a stone. The other one, which had somehow snuck up on him, reared up to crush him with its shield-club. 1337 fired the second time, taking its head off in an explosion of orange slime. "And now for the hat-trick!" He bolted for the Wraith, weaving through the hail of fiery plasma. He climbed on top, prying the hatch open to reveal an Elite. "Hello, ugly," he said, firing the third time. The shot ripped the elite in half, violet blood spraying the interior of the vehicle. With nobody to command it, the tank stopped, disabled indefinitely.

If Kalmiya had a jaw, it would have dropped to the floor. "How...?"

"First-generation pistols were vicious monsters, capable of one-shotting anything and damn near everything. Now, my fifty bucks?"

"Will have to wait. You see, I left my wallet in my other timeline."

"Well fuck you too."

/-/

Several hours of traversing the ship brought 1337 into what appeared to be the brig. On the back wall was the console that, according to the voice in the Spartan's head, would release the prisoners. Guarding said console was an Elite in impressive gold armor. "Must be the shipmaster," Kalmiya whispered. "I wonder what he's doing in the prison blocks?"

"We could ask," 1337 joked.

"Don't even try it." She began to think. "We need to get him away from the control pad so we can rescue the captain."

1337 stepped into open view, calling to the Elite, "Hey, dumbass! Over here!"

"What are you doing?!"

The alien ran at him as he pressed his back to the wall by the door. Once the shipmaster was close enough, the Spartan stuck his leg out, making the Elite trip and wang his head on the opposite wall. He followed up with a punch to the back of its head, and it was out like a light. "That," he finally answered.

"That... I don't even know how to respond to that. I'm just going to sit here while I try to figure out why that worked."

"And while you do that..." 1337 trotted up to the control panel, hitting the big red button that said "Release" on it. Every cell in the room opened, and three marines stepped out, followed by Captain Keyes. "Sir."

"Jesus Monkey Christ!" Keyes jumped. Once his pulse returned to normal, he breathed. "Stop doing that!"

"Good to see you too."

Keyes cleared his throat. "Anyway... Now that we're free, I can fill you in on what we learned." He began to explain the nature of Halo, and how the Covenant were looking for something called 'the Control Room.' "If Halo is a weapon, then you know what we have to do."

"Give me the fifty bucks you owe me for being right?" Kalmiya suggested.

"No. If Halo's a weapon, then we need to seize control of it before the Covenant does. But first thing's first: how are we going to evacuate?"

"Unless you can fly a tuning fork," one of the marines said, "I don't think -"

"Alright, then." The captain grabbed the shipmaster's needler, slapping another cartridge in to top off the magazine. "Look's like we're flying out."

"Huh?" Kalmiya asked. "Sorry, it sounded like you were planning to fly us out of here in a Spirit."

"I am. Chief, you take point."

"Shut up and get behind me... uh, Sir."

As 1337 led the group out of the brig, the shipmaster, now conscious once again, grabbed his ankle weakly. "Who... What are you?"

The Spartan grinned under his helmet, kneeling down. "I'm the Boogeyman, bitch." He stood back up, kicking the Elite's mandibles in.

/-/

The group arrived in the hangar and, as luck would have it, a two-pronged troopship sat suspended by docking clamps. The only thing standing between them and freedom was a phalanx of Jackals and a particularly formidable Brute Chieftain beyond. "You've impressed me," he said in a gutteral drawl. "Coming this far, only to fail."

"Actually," 1337 corrected, "we're here to swipe one of your ships so we can leave."

"Then you will die trying."

"Bet you we won't." He cleared his throat. "Marines! Pistols ready!" The three soldiers at the Spartan's back swapped out for their sidearms, taking aim at the gorilla. "Now, Donkey Kong, I'll make you a deal: let me and my friends leave with the captain, and we don't turn you into the galaxy's hairiest ball of Swiss cheese."

The Brute bellowed, "I'll sharpen my teeth on your bones!"

He hopped over the shield wall, instantly getting perforated by small arms fire. The Jackals, too afraid or stupid to do anything else, stood by, waiting for attack orders that would never come. 1337, not wanting to miss the opportunity, stepped towards them. He cleared his throat, then suddenly shouted, "BOO!"

The Jackals broke ranks, retreating as far as they could from the metal-covered man, who chuckled to himself as he released the ship from its restraints. "Give me a minute to interface with the ship's controls," Kalmiya said once everyone was onboard.

"No need," Keyes insisted, "I learned to fly one of these things when I was a soldier. Give me the wheel." A large door on the upper level of the hangar opened and a pair of Hunters stomped out, opening fire on the rogue transport. "That's just precious..." The ship rotated before ramming headlong into the duo, killing them instantly. "Buckle up," he called to the others, "we've got a war to win!"

/-/

"Hey, 1337," Kalmiya spoke.

"What's up, Kelly?"

"I've been thinking about that Chieftain we killed back on the ship. For a Brute, he was pretty articulate, don't you think?"

1337 pondered the accusation. "I guess he was, wasn't he? What about it?"

"Well... No, it's probably nothing. Forget I said anything."

"Come on, Kelly."

Kalmiya fumed - or would have if she had lungs. "If that Brute was who I think it is, then I get the feeling we haven't seen the last of him."

"No way! 'Galaxy's hairiest ball of Swiss cheese,' remember? He's not getting up from that."

"...You're probably right."


End file.
